The first time I wrote about The Orville was about five years ago (when it was on Fox), and back then I was mostly surprised at how easily it seemed to balance its down-to-Earth comedy with wanting to be taken seriously as a sci-fi drama. Now, in its third season -- and its first as a Hulu Original -- The Orville: New Horizons is finally becoming the show that series creator and star Seth MacFarlane always wanted it to be: Star Trek.
The Orville: New Horizons takes place 400 years in the future. Earth society has advanced both technologically and socially enough by that point that both world hunger and Earth-bound war are basically non-existent, prompting humans to turn their explorative efforts towards the stars.
Early in the series, MacFarlane's character, Ed Mercer, found his wife, Kelly (Adrianne Palicki), having an affair. They divorced, he ended up captaining a ship for the Intergalactic Union (the eponymously named "Orville" herself), and then Kelly (now his ex-wife) ended up being his first officer … and space-based hilarity ensued. I had my doubts about it at first, too, but as I ended up writing in my previous piece on the series, it all worked out.
The Orville used its first two seasons, and the diverse nature of its fictional characters, to tell conversation-starting stories that tackled a variety of topics, including gender identity, homosexuality, cultural and religious tolerance, religion in general, and various politically-adjacent topics, all while still managing to be funny, just not funny enough for all the seriousness to be sucked out. So, what's the difference between The Orville and New Horizons? I've got two words for ya: Budget and balance.
The first noticeable change in New Horizons is how much better everything looks, and that's because of its increased budget. Sure, the VFX still aren't what I'd call "feature-quality," but at least we've gotten past that season one look that, looking back, could best be described as "video gamey" (and honestly, I've seen video games do better). In the face of this season's explosive opening sequence, and the generally cleaner look of a lot of the visuals, the budget increase is pretty obvious. However, in some shots it's also obvious where much of the new budget went, like any shot that has both The Orville and its shuttlecraft in the same sequence. Just by looking, it's apparent that more time and effort were spent on our titular craft that anything else in the shot. That aside, hair, makeup, wardrobe and sets have all hit peak mainstream TV levels of quality, and that most likely is where they'll all stay.
This brings us to balance. Again, The Orville's original claim to fame for me was its ability to balance being a serious sci-fi drama with being a somewhat goofy comedy. The down-to-Earth nature of the Orville's crew members made it easy to access jokes made in the modern-day vernacular, even in the face of its super-futuristic setting. As we all know, being relatable is half the battle when comedy's involved, and this show is as relatable as a series about a space navy can be.
The shift in this seasons' balance, however, is either due to each episode's storylines getting heavier, or the jokes becoming fewer and further between. In plain English, this season is just … less funny. When for example, the entire first episode of the new season is about the processing of grief and guilt, and feelings related to suicide (yes, suicide), it becomes increasingly difficult not to mention how The Orville's tone has changed since its flight on Fox. After Isaac's (Mark Jackson) betrayal of Intergalactic Union -- a move which cost the human race thousands of lives -- some people aren’t ready to accept his continued presence on the Orville, even though he eventually saves everybody. Isaac’s ex-love interest, Dr. Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald), and her two boys play a big part in that narrative as well, which focuses heavily on mental health and the emotional trauma brought onto others by the commitment of such an impactful act.
Maybe this new shift in tone is a reflection of the showrunners' collective mood about life in the real world at this moment. On a macro level, there was a deadly worldwide pandemic over the last couple of years, one that I'm certain was at least partially at fault for us only getting three seasons in the last five. On a more intimate level, the cast and crew of The Orville lost their colleague and friend Norm Macdonald (who played an alien blob named Yaphit) in September of 2021, and I'm sure that didn't help things much, either.
All of this is where my Star Trek comparison came from. Obviously, it doesn't take a genius to see the similarities, but that decided change in tone (from semi-serious to mostly serious) has only brought what was originally a comedic homage of sorts into the realm of direct side-by-side comparison. The style of spacecraft, the uniforms, the format of the show – that much was right in our faces. It's the show's newfound commitment to seriousness that makes it feel like MacFarlane's gone full Roddenberry.
Again, none of this is necessarily a bad thing; it just changes what I thought we'd be given. It probably would've been some sort of faux pas if there was an actual Star Trek series out there with toes for New Horizons to step on, but lets face it: The Orville is actually doing Star Trek better than Star Trek is right now, and that's with me taking both Discovery and Picard into consideration.
Of course, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, on Paramount+, has to be acknowledged here, given the comparatively light-hearted nature of some of its storylines. But let’s be honest: That show came out in May of this year, and The Orville's been doing its thing since 2017. Maybe Strange New Worlds is trying to feel a bit like The Orville because, again, MacFarlane's show is probably the most Trekky non-Star Trek around.
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